My understanding I that at one time, we did have such a registry of employees in the Northwest Territories. I would commit to finding out what happened to that registry. We may still have one. It only makes sense to do so.

In the oil and gas industry, there was a process whereby you expanded your area of coverage, so if you couldn't find people locally, you would go to the next level, which would be within the region, and then you would go to the Northwest Territories — sort of in concentric circles of employment. I would think that would be something that we would espouse.

I know that some of the smaller communities do have informal arrangements whereby they all know what skills are available. Then when they bid on jobs and contracts, they know who to get to, and they work together to make sure that communities get the benefits of contracts. Certainly, this is something that we'll be looking at.

Final supplementary, Mr. Ramsay.

One other question. When the payroll tax was first introduced, it was a way to try to get some revenue from migrant workers. It was increased a couple of years ago to 2 per cent.

If a company — a Northern company — subcontracts with a company in the south, and the payroll is paid out of the south, are we not getting the 2 per cent payroll tax? Because the payroll is coming out of southern Canada to these workers who are working in our backyard and not paying the payroll tax. I'm wondering if there is some slippage there.

That certainly was the intention of the payroll tax. It comes down to a question of monitoring and enforcement. Wherever we are aware of it, the Department of Finance follows up to make sure that the payroll tax is imposed. It’s more difficult to impose when the payments to individual workers are made outside of the Northwest Territories. That would be an area where we would have to look to see how we can

improve the monitoring and follow-up and collection of payroll taxes.

Mr. Speaker, the Residential Tenancies Act will be given over to this House. It’s forthcoming. I did manage to meet with the Standing Committee on Social Programs on January 21 just to give them a brief on the actual changes to the act itself and to get some more feedback from the committee as well. We are at the point where the act is within our department. There are changes that need to take place, and we are still accepting recommendations to the act itself. I will certainly take that into consideration, to work with my department, and how we can fit into our current act that will be in place. Mahsi.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the Minister for that. But one of the issues I highlighted in my Member’s statement is that if somebody gets a job — and let’s say they’re a renter here in Yellowknife, and they get a job maybe somewhere in Nunakput, like my good colleague here — they have to break their lease. What if they’ve just signed a year’s lease? This isn’t a hypothetical question, because this actually does happen. So they’re forced to pay out the remainder of the lease if they want to take a great job advancement somewhere else. The protection doesn’t exist to allow them…. They only get out of the lease if there are good graces by that landlord. Those are the types of protections I’m talking about.

Mr. Speaker, can the Minister inform this House if he’ll take that into consideration when the review of this Residential Tenancies Act does come forward for a final decision?

Mr. Speaker, we will be taking into consideration what is brought forward here today, because the act is still in the works. It has been presented to the Social Programs Committee, and it will be brought to the House. I can certainly take those suggestions into consideration, work with my department, and see if we can integrate that through our discussion paper on the act itself. Mahsi.

I wasn’t 100 per cent clear on the Minister’s answers there. Did he say he would take into consideration those two areas of concern I raised: the way increases happen in the context of the amount; and further, about helping people get out of their leases if they’re built into contracts and they have to leave the normal municipality they live in?

Mr. Speaker, these leases the Member is referring to…. There are different areas, different avenues, whether it be private contractors or at the community level. But certainly those suggestions will be taken into consideration in my discussion with my department, and possibly integrating that through the act that will be proposed. Certainly this is an ongoing discussion with our department — the act itself — so that will be taken into consideration for discussion. Mahsi.

Final supplementary, Mr. Hawkins.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate what the Minister has offered to do there, and I’ll take his commitment on that.

Can I get a sense of the timeframe on when he expects that — updates, or the act to be made public — so we can have some public discussion on that? Further, can he assure me that he will deliver any updates on those suggestions to me as soon as possible?

Mr. Speaker, I am certainly hoping to give notice of introduction of the bill later on this week. Mahsi.

Mr. Speaker, climate change currently costs the Northwest Territories millions of dollars per year and a number of accidental deaths related to an increasingly unpredictable environment. Globally it is costing millions of lives and billions of dollars. Costs now extend to the loss of wildlife species, plants. It includes water contamination, infrastructure damage and so on.

Clearly some provinces are moving forward aggressively and acting on this issue.

What commitments did our Premier make at the recent Premiers’ conference on climate change to act and provide leadership on presenting and adapting to climate change?

Mr. Speaker, the area of climate change, as the Member stated, is one that we had a discussion on, driven by the Council of the Federation

of Ministers and Premiers. The

Premier of British Columbia had hosted that climate change conference. We made a presentation on climate adaptation for the Northwest Territories. As the Member pointed out in his Member’s statement, we are feeling front and centre — although last week we seemed to be back into the days of cold weather in the North.

We have put forward a position that the country needs to recognize as we’re front line on the changes that are occurring. We need to have help in adapting to the impact as well as take a role in how we can lessen our footprints on the environment.

You know, I don’t doubt that we could use help, and everybody would like to minimize our costs and so on. But I think we have a huge potential to do lots of things ourselves. I am again looking for leadership on this issue. I am sure the Premier picked up a lot of things, with the sharing of ideas and so on.

What insights did the Premier pick up that will enable us to move forward with or without help from outside this jurisdiction, given that our population is quite concerned and the costs are accruing to us?

We have done a number of things. Past governments have, for example, replaced old appliances with more efficient appliances, the way we build our homes, the construction techniques that we use for public infrastructure, as well as some of our own transportation infrastructure. Mr. Speaker, I use the example of mitigating the impact of permafrost. We are putting SM insulation underneath tarmac in a number of our facilities across the North. We are trying to take those types of steps.

Other factors, Mr. Speaker: we have even initiated some work to be undertaken by Ministers within this government. Minister Miltenberger is the lead with ENR on climate change initiatives, including a number of departments. We are looking at the hydro potential in the Northwest Territories, and Minister McLeod is the lead minister on the energy file. We are taking those types of steps.

The Member talked about looking at the options out there. There are a number of jurisdictions out in front of us. Quebec, for example, talked about a

carbon tax. We are looking at those types of initiatives here in the Northwest Territories as well.

Thanks to the Premier for that response. It’s great to hear about those things, and I am sure our public will be on board to help out with those initiatives.

I don’t want to cloud the issue of prevention or mitigation with adaptation. When we are spending money to change the way we build airport strips, that is adapting to the changes that are happening now. We need to balance that with efforts directed at preventing further climate change. So I’d like to keep those distinctions there.

I appreciate the moves that we’re making to adapt to climate change, but adaptation is basically spending a lot of money, because climate change is happening. Obviously the preference is to prevent that. So again, I appreciate those responses.

What aggressive action are we taking to take full advantage of the federal programs that are out there? By way of example, I had the opportunity to work with the community of Whati. I suppose over two or three years, that community had enjoyed about $750,000 to $1 million of support from the federal government. The early bird gets the worm. How are we being that early bird and getting support from the federal government on the issues of climate change?

Mr. Speaker, through our departments we’re working with the federal government on a number of fronts trying to take advantage of the dollars that are out there, and how we look at the developments or how we take part in trying to lessen our footprint here in the Northwest Territories in the sense of the impact on the environment. We’ve got our own greenhouse gas strategy and are building on that. The Department of ENR is, again, doing its work. As we set out our strategic initiatives, it’s another avenue where we as the 16th Assembly can further look at the

initiatives that we want to undertake as a government.

Final short supplementary, Mr. Bromley.

Again, I appreciate all the initiatives that I’m hearing about here. Probably the biggest single thing we can do is levy a carbon tax or some way of pricing our carbon emissions so that our industry, especially large industry, will get on board. Are the Premier and his cabinet contemplating that move?

Mr. Speaker, along with the fiscal environment we find ourselves in, we also need to look at revenue options. As I stated earlier, we are looking at a number of those options. A carbon tax is one of those on a list that we would

have to come back to this Assembly with to see if there’s support for bringing something like that forward.

Mr. Speaker, I’d like to follow up on my statement in which I talked about using our employees as a resource. I’d like to ask the Minister of Human Resources what mechanisms currently exist for staff to provide input into our annual budget process?

Mr. Speaker, we certainly recognize that human resources are our biggest asset, and we always try to get the input of individual staff and employees, because we find that they’re the ones that work with the programs and services that we deliver. Generally they come up with some of the best ideas that we have.

We have developed, as a government, a communications strategy and approach for dealing with our budgeting process. We have requested our deputy ministers to send information to their managers, and all managers are familiar with the process.

I would suggest to employees that have any suggestions or comments and want to have input into the process, to raise them with their supervisors or managers. We would welcome their comments.